.SLJ 



F 369 
.S63 
Copy 1 — - 






HISTORICAL SUMMARY AND ARGUMENT 



IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM OF THE 



Louisiana Parishes 



OF 



East and ^yyest Feliciana, East Baton 
Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, Tan- 
gipahoa, 'Vyashington, and 
St. Tammany. 




WASHINGTON, D. C. 

GIBSON BKOTHERS, PEINTERS. 

1884. 



I 



f 



6 






HISTORICAL SUMMARY AND ARGUMENT 

IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM OF THE 

LOUISIANA PARISHES 



East and West Feliciana, East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena^ 
Tangipahoa, Washington, and St. Tammany. 



The petition of tlie police juries of tlie above-named eiglit 
subdivisions of tlie State of Louisiana respectfully represents 
to the Senate and House of Kepresentatives in Congress as- 
sembled — 

That they are styled, in the aggregate, the Florida parishes. 

Tliat these claimants are the guai'dians in their corporate ca 
pacity of the property interests of their respective comnmni- 
ties, both corporeal and incorporeal ; and they believe that in 
their corporate capacity they are the successors and presump- 
tive heirs of the defunct State of West Florida, not heirs to its 
sovereignty, but inheritors of its common domain, which was 
captured by their ancestor from the King of Spain in the fort 
at Baton Rouge on the 23d day of September, A. D. 1810. 
Hence their rights, if any they have, were vested anterior to 
their becoming an integer of the State of Louisiana. 

The following narrative of events, which ensued upon the 
conquest, is offered by the claimants to sustain the inherited 
title to the conquered soil wliich is alleged in their petition, and 
which they solicit the Congress to recognize, viz : 

Simultaneously with the conquest of the fort all the em- 
blems of Spanish authority — civil, military, and clerical — were 
extirpated from the Baton Rouge district. And on the expul- 
sion of the Spanish authorities the conquerors proceeded to 
found a State, wliich proclaimed itself to the woi^d as " The 
Free, Sovereign, and Independent State of West Florida." 
{National Intelligencer, Oct. 2%tJi, 1810.) 

As a State it was never recognized by any established mem- 



ber of the family of nations, l)ut it was created and consoli- 
dated and endowed with all the attributes of sovereignty by 
the will and commandment of a power which has breathed 
life into many other new States in this New World — the sov- 
ereign people! 

Although by a strict construction of the rules of the law of 
nations, our ancestors may have failed to consolidate a govern- 
ment firmly enough knitted to assume to itself the attributes 
requisite to the investiture of sovereign dominion, if they 
failed to acquire such national proportions as would attach to 
their creation the right of eminent domain, neverthless they 
tried hard and made rapid strides in that direction, inas- 
much as they estal)lished a system of interior government 
satisfactory to themselves, which legislated, negotiated, levied 
taxes, and waged war. What State ever made more rapid 
strides to consolidation than that record shows in a brief exis- 
tence of two months and thirteen days ? 

It has already been admitted that the State of West Florida 
was never recognized ^^ selons les i^egles^'' of the hackneyed 
code which prevails with nations which were old before Ke- 
publics were born into the world ; yet it was recognized by the 
people who founded it, and they maintained for their little 
Kepublic, while it lived, an active, defiant, separate exis- 
tence, until the Government at Washington, in response to an 
invitation from the government at Baton Rouge, moved its 
troops into the territory of its little friendly neighbor and as- 
sumed the jurisdiction " in the name and on behalf of the 
people of the United States." 

We reiterate and expect to demonsti-ate that the occupation 
was suggested and the jurisdiction was proclaimed by virtue of 
the invitation extended by the supreme governing power of 
the State of West Florida, and not for the purpose avoivedm 
the President's proclamation of Oct. 27th, 1810, which avowed 
the design of the United States to be to hold the conquered 
domain subject to '''■pending negotiations with Spain. The 
doubt which militates against our hypothesis rests upon two 
acts of sovereignties exercising their functions at two capitals 
very remote from each other in the days before railroads or 



telegraph lines were dreamed of. The government at Baton 
Houge on tlie 10th day of October, A. D. 1810, formulated a 
diplomatic note proposing to the Government at Washington a 
series of clearly stated and germane propositions. On the 2Tth 
day of October the President at Washington issued his proc- 
lamation ordering Governor Clail)orne to assume jurisdiction. 
The interval between the dates of the two acts is short, but 
not so short as to demonstrate our hypothesis to be a physical 
impossibility. On the other hand, it is impossible to assume 
that a President of the United States ordered the invasion of 
a friendly neighbor without the concurrence of the authorities 
of the invaded State and without the consent of Congress ! 

In further demonstration of the proposition that the true 
motive for the occupation was suppressed and that the avowed 
motive was disingenuous we cite the origin, progress, and fail- 
ure of " the pending negotiations with Spain," In the mes- 
sage of Mr. Jefferson of 1803 occurs a paragraph which by 
erroneous interpretation was construed into a claim to the 
wliole Valley of the Mississippi without a break in its contin- 
uity. Popular clamor lashed the waters into a wild roar of in- 
dignation against Spain for withholding the delivery of West 
Florida, which, according to the language of the message, we 
had bought and paid for in 1803. In 1805 Mr. James Mon- 
roe, a most accomplished diplomatist, had been sent to Spain 
and France to negotiate with tliose powers for a rectification 
of l)Oundaries conforming to the popular interpretation of the 
delusive paragraph of the message of 1803. The claim to 
West Florida was scouted by the king of Spain and l)y our 
vendor, the Emperor Napoleon, and by the concurrent testimony 
of Pi-ince Talleyrand and Barbe Marbois, the French Minister, 
who negotiated tiie treaty of 1803. (See American State Pa- 
pers for dispatches of Mr. Monroe, unpublished secret and con- 
fidential message of Dec'r 6, 1805 ; Barbe Marbois', the F]-ench 
negotiator. History of the Louisiana Cession ; also letter of 
Prince Talleyrand to Gen'l Armstrong, American State Pa- 
pers, Foreign Relations, vol. II, p. 634.) 

The cunnilative proofs evoked by the researches and nego- 
tiations of Mr. Monroe against the claim of the United States 



to any part of "West Florida were so conclusive and crushing 
tliat the claim was virtually abandoned at the close of the mis- 
sion of Mr. Monroe in 1805. Even Mr. Jefferson, who ad- 
vanced and pressed the claim, hrqjliedly abandons it in his 
secret and confidential message. And in another recorded in- 
stance, in 1809, we find him counselling his successor to cast 
aside the peaceful policy of slow diplomacy, and " in the event 
of war with Great Britain you must take Baton Houge, or 
they will, and thereby cut off New Orleans from the West and 
the balance of the Union." 

Jefferson'' s Correspondence^ vol. 4, j?p. 131, 132, Char- 
lottesville edition. 

Hence we conclude that the " pending negotiations with 
Spain," which were galvanized by the proclamation of Oct. 
27, 1810, were not pending, but were dead and abandoned. 
The trve reasons for the suppression of the rea/ motive for the 
occupation will be found in Mr. Madison's letter to Mr. Jeffer- 
son of Oct. 19th, 1810. 

Madison's Writings, vol. II, pp. 484,485. 

We hope that by the above historical review "we have con- 
clusively demonstrated that the United States did come into 
the Baton Rouge district by the invitation of our ancestor, 
and did not come for the purpose avowed in the proclamation. 
In case it should be admitted that the jurisdiction and posses- 
sion were assumed in the guise of an invited guest, the com- 
ing in that guise was a substantial acceptance by the Govern- 
ment at Washington of the series of clearly stated and ger- 
mane propositions submitted by the Government at Baton 
liouge in its diplomatic note of Oct. 10, 1810, which note 
ma}' be, without violence to truth or common sense, be styled 
the embodiment of preliminaries for a proposed treaty, the 
most beneficial of which to the United Slates was the tender of 
possession and jurisdiction, and the most favorable to the peo- 
ple of the State of West Fhu-ida was the reservation of title 
to the conquerors of the soil. 

State Papers Foreign Relations, v. Ill, ]>. 395. 



In the above connection it is pertinent to inquire if the 
United States did not come by the invitation of the Baton 
Rouge government, what color of right had they to invade the 
territory of a friendly State, which was very young and very 
helpless ? A sovereign State annexed by proclamation of the 
President ! That is a pi-ecedent for which the models must be 
searched for in the history of British India, where aforetime 
principalities, provinces, States, and empires have been an- 
nexed by proclam.ition of tlie Governor-General; here, how- 
ever, in this western hemisphere, the practice has not found 
much favor or frequent imitation. 

It is confessedly a weak point in our case that the inchoate 
treaty did not mature before the demise of our ancestors into 
a full-blown treaty, digested into articles, signed, sealed, deliv- 
ered, and ratified amid tlie pomp and circumstance of a cere- 
monious diploniatic transaction, and we admit that the want of 
those solemn forms raises o, prima facie showing against our 
claim. Nevei'theless, we hold that the acceptance by the 
United States of the preliminary, which was most conducive 
to its own safety and grandeur, as effectually clinched and 
guaranteed the preliminary which reserved to us the title to 
the soil, as though they were attested l)y a treaty which had 
passed through all the completed ceremonials which subse- 
quently preserved for the State of Texas its broad and mag- 
nificent domain, which was aquired by identical means. 

These are the foundations of our claim to the conquered 
soil. If they are in]])erfect l)y reason of the l)i-ief existence 
and unrecognized attitude of our ancestor, they are at the very 
least as tenable and valid as a title by Presidential proclama- 
tion and an al)sorbing act of Congress "enlarging the limits," 
etc., &c. 

Befoi-e dismissing this l)ranch of om- reclamation we beg 
leave to call the attention of Congress to two singular and al)- 
nornial conditions deducible from our statement above: (f) 
Our ancestors are the only actors in successful revolution in 
the New World from whom the fruits for which they risked 
their necks have been wrested ; (2) the domain of our de- 
ceased ancestor is the only fragment of the wide public domain 



of this big Republic which is held Ijy virtue of a Presidential 
proclamation and by act of Congress ! And we say this with 
full knowledge that the ambiguous language of the treaty of 
1803 has been strained to give color of title to the United 
States, and that the treaty of 1819 does indisputably transfer 
to the United States all the title which the King of Spain had 
to the Baton Rouge district at the date of the treaty. 

Should our title to the soil be denied, in that event we beg 
leave to remind the Congress that the United States did, by 
the a(;t of our ancestor, acquire at a most opportune moment 
full possession and jurisdiction over a scope of territory abso- 
lutely essential to the protection of its fertile empire in the 
valley of the Mississippi — a scope of territory which, had it 
remained under the jurisdiction of Spain, an ally of Great 
Britain during the war of 1812, would have afforded fatal fa- 
cilities to the enemy to blockade the city of New Orleans from 
above, and would have left wide open an important gate to 
the great valley. 

Those calamities were averted by the jurisdiction and pos- 
session derived from our ancestor, and hj that inestimable 
boon General Jackson was enabled to construct a dyke across 
the river entrance to the Bayou Manchac, and hj that means 
to obstruct the passage of hostile fleets into the Mississippi 
river, 100 miles above New Orleans, and likewise to secure an 
uninterrupted line of land travel for the advance or retreat of 
his army to or from New Orleans. And wliile executing these 
necessary works he was enal)]ed to recruit his cav.nlry horses, 
which were worn out by forced marches in the Creek and Florida 
wars, on the succulent pastures of East Baton Rouge and the 
Felicianas. The possession of our ancestor's domain was a 
tower of strength to the United States; to illustrate still 
further its paramount importance as a war aid from the mouse 
to the lion, we state from authentic history that Gen. Coffee 
received orders at Baton Rouge December 17, 1814, to repair 
without sleeping to the relief of the threatened city, mucI on 
the evening of the 19th he reported with twelve hundred 
mounted volunteers from a camp within tifteen ujiles of the 
city. That was the force which disputed every foot of Pack- 



enham's advance from Lake Borgne, and lighted him the way 
to dusky deatli on the bloody field of Chalmette ! 

Other services rendered by the little dead to the great living 
Republic may without offensive boastfulness be here enum- 
erated ; for instance, the daring frontiersmen, under whom we 
claim, opened millions of acres of fertile field and virgin for- 
est which had been hitherto fenced and sealed against the ad- 
vancing cohorts of civil and religions liberty ; wilds out of 
which magically uprose the log school-house, the unpretending 
meeting-house, and all the emblems which denote the approaches 
of Anglo-American civilization. It may likewise be truth- 
fully claimed that the State of Alabama owes its splendid sea- 
port, and the State of Mississippi its long line of sea front, to 
the terror inspired ])y the arms of the little Lone Star Repub- 
lic in its vigorous siege of the Spanisli city of Mobile in the 
winter of 1810. — {Letter of the Spanish Governor Jbolch to 
Secretary of State, Dec. 2, 1810 ; State Papers, Foreign Rela- 
tions, vol. Ill,])- 397.) 

Not least; perhaps, of the legacies l)equeathed by our dead 
ancestor was a famous lot of arms purchased for the forces be- 
sieging Mobile, and which were placed at the service of Gen- 
eral Jackson to arm the volunteers asseml)led for the defence 
of New C)rleans. — {Attorney - GeyieraV s Opinion in case of 
Henri de la Francia.) 

Your memorialists do not question the fact that the logical 
consequences of displaying the Stars and Stripes over the do- 
main was to swallow up like Aaron's rod the weaker sover- 
eignty and the Lone Star, which was the symbol of its power. 
But we do question whether the same cogent logic swallowed 
up rightfully all the trophies and fruits which wei'e wrested by 
our ancestor from the otiicer of the King of Spain in the fort 
at Baton Rouge, fruits and trophies which, by the custom of 
the nations of the New World, invariably attach to conquest. 
Were all the i-ights to the soil which had been acquired by a 
daring band of adventurous frontiersmen at peril of their necks 
likewise swallowed up by the display of the more powerful em- 
blem \ Did it utterly annihilate all the prizes of the valor 
which fired the signal-gun aimouncing that the grapple be- 



8 

tween the Saxon and the Latin race had commenced ? Those 
old ancestors of ours were the heralds of a long line of victories 
and famous deeds of arms, such as no nation as young as the 
United States can inscribe upon an untarnished shield ? They 
were the heralds of San Jacinto, Palo Alto, Resaca de la Pal- 
ma, Matamoras, Monterey, Buena Yista, of Vera Cruz, Cerro 
Gordo, Contreras, Chapultepec, Molino del Rey, Mexico ! 

The charter of our equities springs from the Uring of that 
famous signal gun. Although its legitimate fruits may be 
temporarily withheld, its pi-egnant significance cannot be 
diminished. 

And now, after having disclosed to the Congress a chain of 
title almost without a flaw to a large l)ody of land which has 
been administered as part and parcel of the public domain, 
after having disclosed a series of daring achievements which 
added to the National domain many millions of acres of valua- 
ble land, we appeal to the Congress for fair ai'bitration on oui* 
right to the soil which our ancestor conquered and governed. 
If denied title to the soil we appeal in the alternative to the 
obligation resting upon a magnanimous Government to reward 
unrequited services, which greatly redounded to the National 
grandeur and safety. 

In conclusion, your memorialists will add that tlioiigh they 
have been long postponed, they still look with undiminished 
confidence for fair arbitration upon the equities they have 
alleged. They press for no solution of the question of their 
rights and inherited claiins which will embarass the Govern- 
ment b}' reason of its dealings with the domain in question, or 
which will in any manner impeach the justice and generosity 
of the Government. The}' renew their prayer for the measure 
of relief embodied in the two bills whicli were before the Com- 
mittee on the Public Lands of the XLVIItli Congress, and it is 
matter of indifference to them whether the relief comes in the 
shape of indemnity for shrinkage of tlieir patrimony or in re- 
quital of services, or as a price for the reUnquishment of 
their title. 

liespectf Lilly submitted by — 

HENRY SKIP WITH, 
Agent and Attorney in Fact for the Florida Parishes. 



1 TRRftRV OF CONGRESS 

ilili 

014 543 14» ' 



I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 5431487 



